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EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

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Re: EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

#101

Post by MrPatan »

CamelCaseName wrote: post #94
908B64B197 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of places don't have strong constitutional protections, for anything. Not that long ago, the government in Canada started freezing citizen's bank accounts on suspicions they donated small amounts to a certain peaceful organization organizing protests the government didn't like. They just decided to suspend the constitution (because that's a thing over there?). But what's interesting to see is people from Europe…

"peaceful" is absolutely not the word I'd use for 18-wheeler trucks blaring their horns around the clock in a city center.

Of course not, "peaceful" is reserved for burning buildings and cars.

Re: EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

#102

Post by nebulousthree »

zaphar wrote: post #27
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is someone making a positive difference supposed to navigate an environment where everyone assumes they are bad actors? By increasing transparency and accountability.

I have observed multiple instances where someone had proposed that and been shorted down by the crowd e saying, we don't believe it trust you because you (work in govt, represent a company, are in $political party). Clearly that doesn't work.

That's because it's not the propositions that need to be transparent. Politicians are great at explaining their grandiose propositions. It's the actions taken and the results that need to be transparent.

Re: EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

#103

Post by dustingetz »

max51 wrote: post #44

This is so common (not just in the EU) that it makes me feel like it was done by design in a lot of cases. By creating these massive overcomplicated bills, they make sure only a handful of individuals are capable of reading them and the rest of us (including other politicians) will never read them and instead have to rely on faith. It feels to me like they want to give you the illusion that it's all open/public but a…

legal complexity is emergent from raw freedom - everything becomes a negotiation

Re: EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

#104

Post by dotancohen »

feanaro wrote: post #77
Dalewyn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legalese is like that thanks to a long history of people looking for and abusing any and all loopholes. That led to the natural conclusion of legal words holding standardized definitions that might differ from common understanding, and extreme specification of all details in an effort to preemptively close off any and all loopholes. Anyone who tries to make legalese simpler finds themselves immediately torn asunder b…

Yet at the same time you always hear people repeat that law isn't code, and it isn't dumb, and the spirit of the law is more important than any loophole. That if you try exploiting a loophole, you will just get caught and shot down. So which is it? And if the wording of the law is meant to prevent loopholes, then this could be accomplished in better ways than writing extremely convoluted sentences over and over again…

PHP got the nullsafe operator in version 8.0, released in 2020. That's two and a half decades of language improvement before this common idiom:

  $foo = getFoo();
  if ( !$foo ) {
    return null;
  }

  $foo = $foo->getBar();
  if ( !$foo ) {
    return null;
  }

  return $foo->getBaz();
...could be replaced with this:

  return getFoo()?->getBar()?->getBaz();
And that was with a strong committee actually interested in improving the language.

  > we could reasonably define better abstractions to avoid the need
  > to verbosely repeat each pattern each time by replacing them with
  > shorter, well-defined qualifiers.
The side-effects of those qualifiers are untested and unknown, and the current long legalese serves the people that it is meant to serve. Some might even call the ambiguity and ability to argue semantics a feature.

Re: EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

#105

Post by Kretinsky »

max51 wrote: post #44

This is so common (not just in the EU) that it makes me feel like it was done by design in a lot of cases. By creating these massive overcomplicated bills, they make sure only a handful of individuals are capable of reading them and the rest of us (including other politicians) will never read them and instead have to rely on faith. It feels to me like they want to give you the illusion that it's all open/public but a…

I worked for my government, in the EU, and participated in the creation of such laws.

The vague wording and the complexity is here to give the legislator a lot of freedom in the interpretation of the text.

Bear in mind that those “technical” laws aren't written by MPs – they are written by lobbyists and private consultants like McKinsey, in cooperation with high-tier civil servants. Therefore, they usually follow an agenda that may be hidden or dishonest relative to their initial aim.

I'll take an example: you write a law relaxing the legal definition of what “chocolate” is. It happens that the MP in charge of this law has a Cadbury plant in its constituency – by pure chance, of course! The law and the debate will follow talking points about letting chocolate makers innovate and try new recipes. In reality, Cadbury et al. want to cut costs by introducing cheaper ingredients and reducing quality.

Once automatic screening is in place, it's effortless for the government to start repressing political dissent, to spy on the citizen's economic activity, and so on. In many EU countries, such as France, for instance, an authoritarian government would need to vote very few laws to completely shut down dissent : all the legislative weapons have already been voted by well-meaning and deluded MPs.

The European commission is as hypocritical as it can be. Von der Leyen refuses to show the private texts she exchanged with Pfizer' boss, but wants every EU citizen to surrender their private communications. What is next?

Re: EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

#106

Post by peoplefromibiza »

Kretinsky wrote: post #105
max51 wrote: post #44

This is so common (not just in the EU) that it makes me feel like it was done by design in a lot of cases. By creating these massive overcomplicated bills, they make sure only a handful of individuals are capable of reading them and the rest of us (including other politicians) will never read them and instead have to rely on faith. It feels to me like they want to give you the illusion that it's all open/public but a…

I worked for my government, in the EU, and participated in the creation of such laws. The vague wording and the complexity is here to give the legislator a lot of freedom in the interpretation of the text. Bear in mind that those “technical” laws aren't written by MPs – they are written by lobbyists and private consultants like McKinsey, in cooperation with high-tier civil servants. Therefore, they usually follow an…

> very few laws to completely shut down dissent

except it would mean silencing millions of people, which is frankly more similar to the intro of a sci-fi novel than modern France. See what's happening in Israel, not even the omnipotent Netanyahu could go against the huge popular protests.

> Von der Leyen refuses to show the private texts she exchanged with Pfizer' boss,

That's the same right everyone has in Europe.

Nobody can be forced to publicly show their private conversations.

Only the authorities can ask for them in the case of a trial, if a judge gives the authorization.

> but wants every EU citizen to surrender their private communications.

That's a non sequitur. The law is not about "surrender your private communications", first of all because E2E it's about secrecy, not privacy, privacy still exists without secrecy, and even if it was, Von der Leyen (that I dislike, to use an euphemism) would be subject to it too.

The real World does not work like Gotham City.

Re: EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

#107

Post by Kretinsky »

cowpig wrote: post #7
seydor wrote: post #2

The purpose of most eurocrats is to write long reports to other eurocrats justifying their time and expenses. It's normal to see people claim authority on things they have very little idea of. The recently-caught MEP who took bribes was apparently in charge of science and tech, AI & blockchain , and the things she would say in public were astounding. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylCxsN3qlkU?t=5m30s

Making cynical blanket statements about large groups of people doesn't do anything to address any kind of issue, and instead normalizes negative behaviors both within that group. Within the group, the more people believe that it's the norm, the less social impetus there is to address individual bad actors. Outside that group, people are less likely to treat people fairly if they are perceived to be part of a group of…

You'd be surprised by the large number of EU civil servants with fake/complacency PhDs. There is a cottage industry of PhD candidates writing theses for EU servants, for $$, to make ends meet.

Re: EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

#109

Post by CapstanRoller »

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #66
gizmo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you trust your bios? Your usb stack? Your network card firmware? I get the desire to control the entire chain, but nowadays you’re surrounded by cameras and microphones 24/7, every smart device is a surveillance sleeper agent waiting for the magic word. Certificate chains are the least of your worries.

Anything your monitor displays or sound system outputs is subject to ubiquitous surveillance. And, when there's a gap in the surveillance that's also is subject to interpretation. Privacy already is (mostly) lost and the battle now simply is to reliably establish authenticity that can't be impersonated or doubted. That's where encryption remains helpful.

You don't even have to emit signals. Consumer WiFi equipment can already be used as active radar[0] to track individual movement, and ubiquitous deployment of dense high-frequency cellular networking equipment (5G, 6G) will basically render most house walls transparent (especially if you're living in a USAmerican stick-framed drywall house) potentially allowing for things like face tracking at a distance.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgDdaMy8KNE

Re: EU Commission doesn't understand what's written in its own chat control bill

#110

Post by siquick »

mananaysiempre wrote: post #84
seydor wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 'm actually shocked that people are OK with that. People in countries that have had dictatorships recently probably remember that. Snitches everywhere, the police raiding houses again and again for no reason, with no recourse and people were just accepting it.

As a Russian student studying in Paris, it was a terrifying realization that the mayor can, apparently, prohibit any and all mass protests by simply issuing a decree, no higher authority needed. (This was in 2018 IIRC.) This is apparently part of the anti-terrorist law or something? I dunno, and nobody seemed to care except for the participants of the protests that were happening at the time. Compared to the constant…

In Sydney you need to apply for a permit to stage a protest.
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